Celestia's Notebook

Greenleaf 12th 3472 EE

Yay, new paper scent! Luna will write this up all formal when we present our findings to the Academy, but this will record my personal observations. Celestia here, and this will record our researches into way to allow ponies to use each other's abilities, and whatever else I happen to think of.

But maybe I should say who we are, and why, for posterity. It has to start with my mother and uncle, Marelin and Belgarhoof, fraternal unicorn twins, and oddballs even by the loose standards of the nobility. When my mother married Eperon, a pegasus stallion, it shocked those pointy-headed idiots, but when uncle wed a 'common' earth pony, though there's nothing common about Auntie Ponydra, the entire nobility nearly died of apoplexy.

Which might have been a good thing. 'Unicorn have the right to rule because of their inherent magic' my fluffed pinion feathers! 'It is the unicorn's burden to care for the other, lesser breeds.' As one of those 'lesser breeds', though not as lesser as 'those poor earth ponies', and someone who has researched the whole matter intensively, I can officially declare the whole thing a giant smelly pile of horse-apples!

It can be demonstrated that all breeds of pony have their own inherent magic; it's just that unicorns can use it more flexibly through their horns. Earth ponies' magic is almost entirely focussed in their supernatural strength and endurance, while we pegasi have our magic tied to our flying ability. Without a degree of control over gravity and inertia, we wouldn't even be able to get of the ground, let alone fly as fast or far as we do. Our magic is equal in power, but different!

Sorry, ranting there. Fortunately while it may have shocked them, there's not much they could do about it. 'The poor are mad, the rich merely eccentric', and when you're also the two most powerful mages in the whole of Equestria, you pretty much 'sleep where the Ursa Major sleeps', in other words, wherever you like, and with whoever you like, as no-pony has the horn to stop you, in both senses of the word.

The very fact that the three of us children exist prove that all ponies are sub-races of a single species. Each of our different forms are simply a remarkably stable linked set of dominant traits within the species. The magical dominant traits do seem to form orthogonal sets, so it'll only ever express as Earth pony, unicorn or pegasus in a particular individual.

When two different breeds have offspring, there's a fifty percent chance their children will express a particular set of traits, and I have evidence that it is not gender linked. For example a unicorn stallion and pegasus mare could have either a unicorn or pegasus foal, but it could be either a colt or a filly in each case.

Of course, given the common prejudices on inter-racial breeding, supporting data is hard to find, and even harder to verify. That's why Proceedings threw out my paper on the subject. 'Poor data collection', 'unverifiable results', 'not suitable for publication'…

Why couldn't they just admit that if they published it, the implication of equality it suggests might alienate some of their powerful unicorn patrons, and might no longer get their financial… I mean, valued support. What foals! But we will show them, we will show them all!

Ranting again, stop it Celly, you're not a mad scientist, furious yes, but not insane, at least not yet. Back on topic. I am a pegasus, like my father before me, while my younger sister Luna is a unicorn. Our cousin, Atlas is an Earth pony, though for all practical purposes he's like our big brother, and together we are… The Equality Crusaders! Equality Crusaders Go!

Sorry, haven't done that since we were foals, though it sounds better with a fanfare. Note to self: get Luna to work out a spell effect that automatically triggers some sort of fanfare when the words are read. Naturally, while we had the noble upbringing, it was pretty much the three of us against the world, or at least our snotty nosed unicorn peers.

Fortunately, while our magic powers are different, our power level has breed true. I create shockwaves going at full speed, Atlas can lift building sized rocks and kick a dragon into unconsciousness with a single buck (well he shouldn't have melted Luna's ice-cream with his fire breath), while Luna can cast dozens of different classes of spells, and her telekinesis can also tote castle sized rocks around.

Of course, that's less than helpful in the social side of things, which get vicious. Luna, despite being the unicorn of the group, or maybe because of it, always got the worse of it. She's the youngest and takes things so seriously. Atlas and I do our best to protect her, and no, you're wrong when you assume how.

Atlas is the one who can return the exquisitely polite insults with verve and aplomb, while I'm the one who's more likely to hold up a hoof in front of some noble's muzzle and ask them if they'd like a closer inspection at trans-sonic speeds. Of course, pranks are a better way to exact vengeance, and for a pegasus in a unicorn's world, there are interesting possibilities. Heh heh heh!

Note to self: rubbing hooves together gleefully while you cackle requires your wings to flap, and flapping wings are not good for a desk full of papers. Additional note to self: Invent some sort of stick with jaws on the end that are driven via a linkage by your own jaws, the better to pick up papers without having to kneel.

Nevertheless, we had the money for private tuition, and to engage in private research, which helped, as I doubt we could have found a sponsor otherwise. I'm the ideas mare, interested in anything and everything. My flank-mark is a solar disk, because I believe in lighting the dark places of the world with knowledge, well, that's my take on it. Luna says it's for my sunny personality, and Atlas says it's because I'm flaming mental. Dear boy, he knows me so well.

Luna has a lunar flank mark, which matches her explorations into the mysterious nature of magic, changing the world as the moon changes phases. Which works well for an arch-mage class spell developer and artificer. Atlas has a hill emblazoned with the formula for a normal probability distribution, which is what the shape of the hill conforms to. This is probably because he's the best mathematician and arithmancer in Equestria.

With the three of us working together, we should be able to come up with some ideas to really shake things up. I come up with the crazy notions, flying around the phase space of ideas at high speed and, coming back with souvenirs. Atlas will do the maths to make them rigorous and basically put them to work, and Luna will take the theory and translate it into functioning spells and artefacts.

Our basic plan is to find ways to allow each sub-race access some of the abilities of the two others. If unicorns and earth ponies can fly, and pegasi and earth ponies can do magic, and we can give a unicorn or pegasus the strength and endurance of an earth pony, the unicorn nobility's cheesecloth justification for social control will go out of the window.

I have some ideas in each area. A spell to create wings on non-pegasi, controlled by the will of the subject. I have a particular insight into this, considering who I am. Adding the same degree of weight and inertial control would be tougher, though that would have other applications.

Develop it as a separate rune set, and you might be able to invest artefacts with it. You could even make a flying chariot that a pegasus could pull. I'm sure we could find a use for that. Note to self: Bounce the idea off Luna. Slave it to the pegasus's own flight magic? How do we synchronise it for a team?

Of course, I have at least two non-magical solutions, based on my study of how air moves. The big advantage would be that it would be independent of unicorn magic, so they could not prevent it. Hot air seems to rise, why I'm not sure of yet, but it can carry small objects, ash, leaves, and paper scraps with it.

If you could somehow catch hot air in a large enough, light enough bag, it might lift it, and even carry something attached to the bag. There are also some vapours given off by alchemical processes that show the same behaviour without being heated. Either way trapping the airs is the trick, as even the finest cloth has gaps in the weave.

Or we could create an artificial pegasus wing out of cloth and lightwood. I have studied the clouds flowing over my own wings as I glide, and I think the air on the top goes faster. Certainly the effect somehow creates an upward force, even when the wing is held flat. Again, creating such a thing would require a non-porous cloth. Maybe some sort of gum, or varnish might seal it up.

Duplicating Earth pony strength would require some sort of spell, mimicking the way Earth ponies draw strength from the ground. I have some ideas on how to model the spell effect, and hopefully with study, Atlas can develop a rune-set we could embed on horseshoes. I've always wondered why they call them that, horses are fictional creatures from fairy tales.

The big one is of course, unicorn magic. There, there is only one real solution, an artificial horn equivalent. A more advanced version of the paper picker-upper could substitute for telekinesis, at least at close range. Note to self: Study hoists and cranes, there might be some useful ideas there. But more varied effects would require a focus.

We could either make it so it can be held in the mouth, or have some sort of headband so it would be worn where a unicorn's horn goes. Mapping out the magical flows in a unicorn body is our first priority.

Just you wait Equestria, a new dawn is coming, one where no pony will be looked down upon because of her race, and Celestia will be the one bringing it! This definitely requires mad laughter and gleeful rubbing of hooves together… After I find a paperweight.

Authors Notes: A possible lunchtime story for me to work on, as the chapters will be a couple of pages of diary entry. If young Celestia comes across completely OOC, a mix of Washu, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, good, that's how I want her to be. There's reasons that present day Celestia is so different.

If you're wondering, I set the start about 1400 years before the time of Nightmare Moon's rebirth. A lot can happen in 1400 years.